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Assane Diop


Assane Diop (played by Omar Sy as an adult and Mamadou Haïdara as a teenager), born 13 May 1981, is the protagonist of Lupin. As a child, Assane moved to Paris with his father, Babakar, from their native Senegal. His mother, Mariama, had initially intended to join them, but troubles with the law forced her to stay behind. When Assane was fourteen years old, Babakar was framed by his employer, Hubert Pellegrini, for the theft of a necklace that had originally belonged to Marie-Antoinette. Shortly after his father died in prison, Assane discovered the Arsène Lupin books, and was immediately captivated by the adventures of the gentleman thief. Taking Lupin as his inspiration, Assane has grown up to become a wily, resourceful master criminal, who uses his charm and his flair for spectacle to stage elaborate heists. Identifying with the label of "gentleman", he is an expert in winning his victims over before ultimately swindling them. Assane's exuberant, outgoing personality masks a strong vengeful streak: he carries out most of his criminal activity against those who have mistreated him or his loved ones in some way. Although he is a cunning manipulator, Assane also has a tendency to let his emotions get the better of him, particularly when those he cares about are in danger, which has led him to make irrational and impulsive decisions on occasion.

Egocentric side, difficulties being there for his family

Relationship to the police & media attention

Over the course of the series, Assane has taken on many alternate identities and personas, including Luis Perenna (a janitor at the Louvre Museum), Paul Sernine (a multimillionaire American tech CEO), Salvator (an elderly whistleblower), and Alex (a youth basketball coach).

Critical praise for the character

Claire Laurent


Claire Laurent (played by Ludivine Sagnier as an adult and Ludmilla Makowski as a teenager) is Assane's estranged wife and the mother to their son Raoul, whom she is raising on her own while working at Paris' Lariboisière Hospital. Claire is a compassionate woman who loves Assane and wants him to be a more present father, but also worries about the effects his actions have on Raoul's safety and mental health. Disagreements arise between Assane and Claire over the former's ostentatious stunts and frequent lies; Claire often pleads with Assane to be honest with her, or to be careful, usually to no avail. Even so, she continues to offer him chances to redeem himself as a partner and a father.

Attitude to media following & "Madame Lupin"; anti-violent streak, serving as his conscience as a teenager, good judge of character, creativity, mischievous/cunning side in spite of unassuming demeanor,

Benjamin Férel
Benjamin Férel (played by Antoine Gouy as an adult and Adrian Valli de Villebonne as a teenager), commonly known as "Ben", has been Assane's best friend since he was a teenager. A methodical, affable and extremely loyal if somewhat highly-strung man, Benjamin is the owner of an antique shop, in which he has been known to sell various items that Assane has stolen. His strong technological capabilities, encyclopedic knowledge on jewelry, and ability to quickly generate copies of priceless works of art have helped Assane on many occasions. Benjamin is usually the only person who is fully informed of everything that is going on in Assane's life, and although he often questions the logistical aspects of Assane's plans, he invariably winds up lending a hand. Benjamin is also good friends with Claire and sometimes voices his concerns about the toll that Assane's criminal activity is taking on her and Raoul.

Meeting at school, the catacombs, Benjamin's wealthy family

Youssef Guédira


Youssef Guédira (played by Soufiane Guerrab) is a detective on the police force. Regarded as geeky and even eccentric by his superiors, Guédira is a socially awkward but well-intentioned officer whose primary skill set lies in the more cerebral aspects of detective work. Like Assane, Guédira is a huge fan of Arsène Lupin, and is thus the only member of the police department who is instantly able to spot Assane's criminal inspiration. Although his theories are routinely dismissed by his co-workers, Guédira stubbornly continues to investigate them, and eventually manages to catch up to Assane in the town of Étretat. Guédira and Assane form a bond based on their shared love of the Lupin stories, despite operating on opposite sides of the law, with Assane often teasing Guédira by leaving clues for him as to his whereabouts. On several occasions, Guédira and Assane have teamed up in pursuit of a common goal. In these situations Assane refers to Guédira as "Ganimard", the name of Arsène Lupin's arch-nemesis police officer, who is Guédira's favorite character in the stories.

In Part 3 it is revealed that Guédira has a crush on his colleague Sofia Belkacem. He also attracts romantic interest from Fleur Bélanger, a journalist with whom he shares his theories about Assane's various exploits and their connection to the Arsène Lupin books.

Sofia Belkacem
Sofia Belkacem (played by Shirine Boutella) is a police lieutenant, and Guédira's immediate superior. As of part 3, she has been promoted to the rank of captain. Belkacem is a confident and ambitious policewoman who believes in upholding the rule of the law, and as such greatly desires to put Assane behind bars. She has a rather choleric, pugnacious temperament and as such is highly prone to bursting into fits of rage whenever she is outsmarted by Assane, an occurrence which, to her embarrassment, happens frequently due to the fact that she is inclined to dismiss Guédira's theories about Assane as overly fanciful, despite his repeatedly being proved right. Belkacem is nonetheless close with Guédira, although she is frequently exasperated by his many idiosyncrasies and his quasi-friendship with Assane. She eventually becomes aware of Guédira's fondness for her, but whether or not she shares his feelings remains ambiguous.

Raoul Diop
Raoul Diop (played by Etan Simon) is the son of Assane and Claire. He was born on 11 December 2006, sharing his birthday with Arsène Lupin author Maurice Leblanc. Although he was the result of an unplanned pregnancy, both Claire and Assane adore him. Raoul is fifteen years old as of the end of part 3, and is depicted as a stoic, socially withdrawn Generation Z teenager who spends much of his free time reading and playing video games. When Assane introduced him to the Lupin books, he took to them in much the same way as his father did. Raoul is also shown to have an interest in sports, joining a local youth basketball team to some success. Assane's chaotic and dangerous lifestyle has ensured that Claire retains full custody of Raoul, who nevertheless idolizes his father, and wishes that his parents would get back together.

Juliette Pellegrini


Juliette Pellegrini (played by Clotilde Hesme as an adult and Léa Bonneau as a teenager) is the daughter of wealthy businessman Hubert Pellegrini. She and Assane first met while Babakar was working for Hubert, and the two carried out an on-again, off-again affair until 2006, when Claire became pregnant with Raoul. Juliette is generally well-intentioned but also naive and spoiled, while her status as the "other woman" in Assane's life is a source of jealousy and insecurity for her. At the start of the series, Juliette is collaborating with her father on various business ventures, most notably a foundation intended to provide opportunities for disadvantaged children. She and Hubert have always been very close, with Juliette being largely unaware of her father's long list of misdeeds until Assane manages to convince her to extract the truth from her mother, Anne.

Anne Pellegrini


Anne Pellegrini (played by Nicole Garcia) is the wife of Hubert Pellegrini and the mother of Juliette Pellegrini. A polite but rather passive and impressionable woman, Anne knew about most of Hubert's crimes in the 1990s but kept quiet about all of it, largely due to her concern about how it would affect Juliette. However, Anne felt terrible about what happened to Babakar, and secretly paid for Assane to be educated at the elite Andrésy school following his father's death. In the present day, she and Hubert live separately, though they still appear to be married. Anne is ultimately convinced by Juliette to give evidence about Hubert to the police.

Hubert Pellegrini


Hubert Pellegrini (played by Hervé Pierre) is an unscrupulous business tycoon who serves as the main antagonist for the first two parts of the series.

Babakar Diop
Babakar Diop (played by Fargass Assandé) was Assane's late father. An upstanding, industrious man, Babakar moved from Senegal to France with Assane when the latter was a boy, with the two settling in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil. Babakar quickly gained employment with Hubert Pellegrini as a chauffeur and sometime housekeeper; unbeknownst to him, Hubert intended to frame him for stealing an expensive necklace once owned by Marie-Antoinette, in order to collect the insurance money. Shortly after being imprisoned for the crime, Babakar was found hanging from a noose in his prison cell. Although his death was initially ruled a suicide, it is revealed that he was was actually murdered by Hubert's associate Léonard Koné.

Romain Laugier
Romain Laugier (played by Vincent Londez) is a police captain who leads the squad that includes Belkacem and Guédira. He is a demanding, hierarchically-oriented and somewhat close-minded officer who, like Belkacem, initially displays a great deal of disdain for the Lupin-related ideas that Guédira has been coming up with. However, after Guédira is continuously proved correct when it comes to Assane's exploits, Laugier becomes more open to hearing his perspective. Laugier is not present in part 3; in his absence Belkacem is promoted to his role as captain.

Gabriel Dumont
Gabriel Dumont (played by Vincent Garanger in middle age and by Johann Dionnet as a younger man) is the commissioner of the police department in parts 1 and 2 of the series. In 1995, Dumont was the detective placed in charge of overseeing the Babakar Diop case, which drew him into the orbit of Hubert Pellegrini. Ultimately Dumont allowed himself to be bribed by the businessman, and his tenure as commissioner has been marred by corruption and deceit, which is eventually uncovered by Laugier, Belkacem and Guédira. He is last seen being taken into custody in the final episode of part 2.

British Latin
In most of what was to become England, the Anglo-Saxon settlement and the consequent introduction of Old English appear to have caused the extinction of Vulgar Latin as a vernacular. The Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic people, spread westward across Britain in the 5th century to the 7th century, leaving only Cornwall and Wales in the southern part of the country and the Hen Ogledd in the north under British rule.

The demise of Vulgar Latin in the face of Anglo-Saxon settlement is very different from the fate of the language in other areas of Western Europe that were subject to Germanic migration, like France, Italy and Spain, where Latin and the Romance languages continued. Recent genetic surveys have suggested that the present-day English population derives significant portions of its ancestry from both the Anglo-Saxons and the Romano-Britons; therefore, it is likely that a large number of Britons switched to speaking Old English. One theory for why this occurred is that in Britain there was a greater collapse in Roman institutions and infrastructure, leading to a much greater reduction in the status and prestige of the Romanised culture; and so the indigenous people were more likely to abandon their languages, in favour of the higher-status language of the Anglo-Saxons.

There are, however, isolated indications of Latin's survival in the Celtic population. Pockets of spoken Latin may have survived as isolates in regions otherwise dominated by Anglo-Saxon Germanic. As late as the 8th century, the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of St Albans, near the Roman city of Verulamium, were aware of their ancient neighbour, which they knew alternatively as Verulamacæstir (or, under what H. R. Loyn terms "their own hybrid", Vaeclingscæstir, "the fortress of the followers of Wæcla") interpretable as a pocket of Romano-Britons that remained within the Anglo-Saxon countryside, probably speaking their own local neo-Latin idiom.

other stuff
In 2019, Oosthuizen published The Emergence of the English, in which she argued that rather than being born out of conquest by Germanic-speaking tribes, the origins of England and the English people can be traced to political and demographic continuity with Roman Britain. Oosthuizen's ideas have been described as "anti-migrationist", and have received a critical response from several scholars of early Anglo-Saxon England.